Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by darebear

Perhaps the Casutiguses are the degenerate remnants of the Dark Elves which caused the Banestorm, mutated by their own folly? What do they eat? Adventurers mainly...likely not for nourishment though. They probably just like the taste.

If you don't have access to Orcslayer, here are some other bits of tid about the Swamps of Sulfor and the Caustigus.

Swamps of Solfor: The water is actually "soupy acid" which can be deeper than 2 yards in places (deep enough to fully immerse a human). Wide hummocks, possibly floating masses of material, act as paths through narrow channels filled with acid. The lighting, at least in places where the caustigus hangs out, is unnaturally dark (Darkness Penalty -5) despite the lack of trees on the battle map. The acid which burns flesh at the rate of 1 HP/second and armor at the rate of 1 DR/2 seconds - very powerful stuff. Reptile man hide is immune to the acid effects. Earth, some types of stone and rare unspecified organic items are also immune. Everything else gets eaten away at 1 HP/sec for soft materials or half that rate for metal items. The acid retains its properties if removed from the swamp.

Since reptile men are immune to the acid (but can't drink it), it's a good place for them to appear.

It would be an easy play on words to make Solfor = Sulfur due to the hydrogen sulfide stench.

As written, the swamp is portrayed as being too big to conveniently avoid and about a day's journey to cross.

All that argues for a possibly large natural less acidic swamp, but with areas of magically augmented concentrated acid and gloom.

Caustigus: It's unknown if it's a unique creature or not. I'd argue that it's a species, since its stats aren't that impressive (DR 2, HP 16, Move 4 - an easy kill for a party of dungeon delvers except for its fast-regenerating arms and preferred habitat.). It's "aquatic" in that it lives in the deeper parts of the acid pools and looks vaguely like a giant four-armed octopus, but with hands at the end of each tentacle. It's an ambush predator which can surface unobserved and will attack at an advantage. It can also pop up in any acid hex on the battle map, even though the channels aren't contiguous. That means short-ranged teleport or burrowing or ability to swim under floating mats of stuff (peat, masses of dead grass?). Its touch is caustic, but its primary attack is to grapple, pull victims into the acid and drown/dissolve them. It's extremely sensitive to light, to the point that even torches will partially blind it and it lacks DR on its eyes, which makes it a less than impressive foe once the PCs know what to do. It's sapient (IQ 10) but vile-tempered and murderous, so it could easily be a mutant dark elf.

Since it's magic, the caustigus doesn't necessarily need to eat. If it does, it could just filter feed on acid, adding organic matter and minerals (i.e., tasty adventurers and their gear) for nutrients and flavor.